I agree with all 12 points (I am glad there were 12) Arthur has written.

I did not think that GPL could be written into the proposal. Partly, my
[incorrect] reasoning was based on one a discussion with Karin McDonald of
UCB's Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS). She felt UC would be more
demanding. I did not really get into this subject with Director Bruce Cain.

On point #10: In our 2 May 2001 proposal, we (Prof. Henry Brady, Dir of the
Survey Research Center) explicitly wrote in non-University employees as
consultants. In fact, around half the money (~$425,000) would have gone to
those consultants. That was a different funding strategy entirely, of
course, as it was supposed to become a line-item in the state budget. I
suppose NSF projects would have different requirements.

That said, I'm not sure we should put all our eggs in the NSF basket. Let's
try for other funding sources as well.

> I have been busy with a deadline on Friday night, so I am just now
> catching up on the discussion.
>
> Here are my personal comments and suggestions.
>
> 1. I suggest that the demo software be GPL.
>
> 2. Everyone doing work on this demo project is doing so as a volunteer.
>
> 3. Time people have spent in the past is a sunk cost. There is the
> potential for getting paid to do work in the future, but there is no
> obligation to reimburse people for work done in the past.
>
> 4. There is potential for raising money for developing production
> grade software. I have offered to lead the effort of submitting an
> NSF proposal.
>
> 5. In such an NSF proposal or other fundraising proposals, there is
> the potential for declaring as part of the proposal text the type of
> licensing terms. If we want the results of such a project to be GPL,
> we can write that into the NSF proposal, and such a writing would be
> binding on the University of California or any other institution that
> participated. I would be in favor of making such a declaration.
>
> 6. I am in favor of hiring Alan Dechert to work on the NSF-funded
> project, and that is justifiable because of his expertise. He would
> then get paid for his actual work on the project based on his
> expertise, which he obtained through years of volunteer work. If I
> lead the effort to write a proposal to the NSF, I will propose
> including Alan in an appropriate role.
>
> 7. There is the potential for any number of organizations being
> formed to support boards of elections and the like and using the open
> source GPL software developed as part of an NSF-funded project. This
> is akin to Red Hat (and competitors) for Linux. It is also akin to
> Cygnus, which was a company that provided tech support for open
> source software (before it's acquisition).
>
> 8. The faculty, students, and staff working on the NSF-funded project
> would get paid for their time, as is usual practice at Universities.
> They would not have intellectual property rights to the software,
> since that would be GPL, according to my proposal above.
>
> 9. When the demo is completed, we would collectively decide what to
> do next. We do not know how much rework, redesign, etc., would be
> needed. We don't yet know how useful that software would be for the
> development of the production version.
>
> 10. Those people who worked on the demo might be able to continue
> volunteering with the NSF-funded project. However it is most likely
> that only those employed by an institution participating in the
> proposal could actually get paid. I don't want to rule anything out
> in terms of participation at this point.
>
> 11. As someone who has served as an expert witness on patent
> infringement cases, I think I know a fair amount about intellectual
> property. There are several types of IP: patent, trademark,
> copyright, and trade secret. At this point, there is no patentable
> invention. Alan's web publications may preclude anyone from filing a
> patent application on this topic. And we should collectively write
> publications to preclude others from filing patents and to
> acknowledge our collective work on this project. I do not know that
> there have been any trademarks asserted. There are no (tm) labels
> that I've seen in any messages. I for one won't lead a proposal
> effort that uses a trademarked name. There is a copyright on each
> and every writing that we do. There is not even the need to assert
> copyright, due to the Bern Copyright Convention several decades ago.
> But copyright is on the expression of an idea, not the idea itself.
> What's in each of our heads that we have not yet disclosed is a trade
> secret. Everything we've written down and disclosed is not a trade
> secret. I hope it is clear from this discourse that the primary IP
> that Alan (or anyone in this group) has is copyright. Like the
> software, I propose that any documentation and other written
> materials for this project also be GPL.
>
> 12. My comments on the above are not to say that Alan doesn't have
> some moral authority from having devoted countless hours to this
> effort. But that moral authority is earned and not legal. Just as
> any moral authority I have is from the respect that are given to me
> as a result of my efforts on this project and elsewhere.
>
> I think it is important for each of us to understand the nature of
> intellectual property on this project, the future direction we
> contemplate, and whether any of us intends to make money off of this
> effort. Those of us who volunteer need to know if their efforts will
> go to line someone else's pocket.
>
> My vision for the NSF-funded project is to have something that has
> the impact of Berkeley UNIX, but under a more favorable (to the
> public) licensing scheme.
>
> Arthur
> --
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
> Arthur M. Keller, Ph.D., 3881 Corina Way, Palo Alto, CA 94303-4507
> tel +1(650)424-0202, fax +1(650)424-0424
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Received on Sun Aug 31 23:17:11 2003